Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Beh-nam/Archive

Report date February 2 2009, 05:36 (UTC)

 * Suspected sockpuppets


 * Evidence submitted by Kingturtle (talk)

At Muhammad_of_Ghor: Here MohammedZahirShah adds a CE Bosworth citation and Persian/Tajik stock information. Here Beh-nam added the CE Bosworth citation; here a Beh-nam sockpuppet added Persian/Tajik information; here Beh-nam added Tajik stock info.

At Logar Province: Here MohammedZahirShah changes link in article to read Dari-Persian; here a sock puppet of Beh-nam changed link in article to read Dari-Persian.

If you need more, let me know.

Kingturtle (talk) 05:36, 2 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Comments by accused parties    See Defending yourself against claims.


 * Comments by other users


 * Clerk, patrolling admin and checkuser comments


 * - Self endorsed, warrants a Checkuser. Tiptoety  talk 04:55, 3 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Conclusions
 * I picked this account during my Beh-nam range sweep. Already ✅ and blocked. Nishkid64 (Make articles, not wikidrama) 17:06, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

Report date May 27 2009, 03:06 (UTC)

 * Suspected sockpuppets


 * Evidence submitted by Enric Naval


 * Supporting evidence: removing images from Pashtun people because "they are not pashtun", using a variety of bad rationales. Similar edit by other sock . Other sock also removing images because it doesn't fit his strict interpretation of "Pahstun" other socks fighting about images in that article . Beh-nam himself already fought over images at the article.

Enric Naval (talk) 03:06, 27 May 2009 (UTC)

I see that this use was tagged by 119.73.6.206. I suspect that this guy could be indef-blocked NisarKand, who falsely labelled editors he disagreed with as sockpuppets of Ben-ham. Please checkuser him too to verify if it's Nisarkand again trying to mislead people. --Enric Naval (talk) 16:20, 28 May 2009 (UTC)


 * Comments by accused parties    See Defending yourself against claims.


 * Comments by other users

Indef Blocked + tagged User:Abidreh. The Helpful  One  21:13, 29 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Clerk, patrolling admin and checkuser comments
 * Just as an comment, I unblocked this account after Check User confirmed that the IP was stale. The  Helpful  One  23:24, 29 May 2009 (UTC)

- Beh-nam is stale, and the IPs on the other user don't match anything in the archives. -- Versa geek  21:31, 29 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Conclusions
 * Based on CU data, this is neither NisarKand nor Beh-nam. Nishkid64 (Make articles, not wikidrama) 02:02, 30 May 2009 (UTC)

Evidence submitted by Raoulduke47
Inuit18 is undoubtedly a sockof banned user Beh-nam. The edit pattern is the same as all his past socks: they consist in editing Afghanistan-related topics, and generally glorifying Persian culture and emphasizing Tajik ethnicity whenver possible,. Compare with an edit of a past sock:  supporting the same edit. At Logar Province: Here Inuit18 changes link in article to read Dari-Persian; here a sock puppet of Beh-nam changed link in article to read Dari-Persian.

His behaviour is highly disruptive as he frequently gets into edit wars with other users, indeed this account has already been indef blocked for doing just that, though this was later rescinded. Raoulduke47 (talk) 13:58, 17 September 2010 (UTC)

Some more evidence:
 * As already stated, a lot of his edits consist in emphasizing Tajik ethnicity,just like other Behnam socksand campaigning against the use of the word "Afghan", like other Behnam socks


 * He frequently gets involved in edit wars, and accuses his contradictors of being sockpuppets of another banned user, NisarKand(compare ) and ,) which they sometimes are.
 * This edit looks a lot like this one by another sock.
 * is very similar to another sock edit
 * At Afghan Social Democratic Party (Afghan Mellat), this edit is similar to this one


 * Also, Inuit18 is now edit warring at Demography of Afghanistan, in order to promote a map created by a commons user called "Le Behnam". This may all be a coincidence, but I don't think so. Consider that "Inuit18"'s first edit wasn't like "What is wikipedia all about", but instead he jumped straight into an edit war. In addition, the articles where this account is the most active(such as Ahmad Shah Durrani, Demography of Afghanistan, Habibullāh Kalakāni), were previously were targeted by Behnam sockpuppets. --Raoulduke47 (talk) 15:30, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

Comments by accused parties
See Defending yourself against claims.

Clerk, patrolling admin and checkuser comments

 * Frankly, I'm not seeing it. Perhaps they edit the same subject area and have a similar viewpoint. That is far from saying that they are socks. T. Canens (talk) 06:05, 19 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Perhaps if you could provide more information for the checkusers, they would be willing to run a checkuser? NW ( Talk ) 02:42, 20 September 2010 (UTC)


 * That's good, I've done a check. Unfortunately, everything else is, so I have nothing to compare this user to. However, I did geolocate Inuit18's IP addresses along with some of the ones in Behnam's sockpuppet category, and based solely on that, Inuit seems to be unrelated. Officially, however, I'm going to say due to the lack of data. If someone else has notes on this guy, they may be of more use, but when I scanned through the confirmed socks category, it looked like most of the socks were from 2008, so I wouldn't hold out much hope there. Hers fold  (t/a/c) 16:37, 20 September 2010 (UTC)
 * It's been a couple of days, it doesn't look like anything is forthcoming. I'll mark for close. TN X Man  11:45, 22 September 2010 (UTC)

25 May 2014

 * Suspected sockpuppets




 * User compare report Auto-generated every hour.
 * Editor interaction utility

Same commenting style: Barakzai1919 Feysalafghan Observerpashtun LouisAragon's

Same disruptive activities, spreading Pan-Iranianism, and adding personal analysis, etc.   Abusing South Asians     Calling every Pakistani editor a Pakistani nationalist, messing up well written Afghanistan related articles by constantly inserting in them "the region of nowadays Afghanistan"  when that country was created in 1747. This IP is in fact LouisAragon, both distinctly type "PoV" in edit summaries and both edit the same articles. 

Looking at these 2 diffs  it doesn't take a genius to figure out that LouisAragon and Feysalafghan are both the same person. These 2 diffs makes it more certain. Both behave the same and share the same ideology, and show the same hostility to a particular group of people.

Beh-nam was an extremely racist editor who used so many socks in the past for edit-warring on Afghanistan related pages, spreading Pan-Iranianism, attacking South Asian editors, and behaving just like the suspected socks in this new case. Some of his confirmed socks are User:Barakzai, User:RealAfghan112, User:Qandahari-Pashtun, User:StevenLeClark, User:SarbanFan1970). These are almost identical to the current suspected socks, and they all edit the same area in Wikipedia and share the same view point on stuff, especially when it comes to certain races or people. 39.47.158.101 (talk) 02:03, 25 May 2014 (UTC)


 * I guess I would first do a CU on because that's the main one that he's using right now. All of the suspects appeared recently at the same page (Pashtun people) , a page Beh-nam used to edit the same way. He has admitted many times in the past that he's ethnic Tajik  . It's very easy to notice him because he's editing Afghanistan related articles in which he tries to defame Afghans and favor Persians/Iranians, he's doing the same exact actions right now with the LouisAragon account on all Afghan related pages.  In addition to that, he's the only person (since 2006) that hates the idea of Afghanistan being included in South Asia and has tried making it part of Central Asia/Middle East by vandalizing pages. --39.41.134.92 (talk) 18:42, 25 May 2014 (UTC)

Comments by other users
''Accused parties may also comment/discuss in this section below. See Defending yourself against claims.''

Eh, I have no idea why people brought me up here, but they can do all IP/sockpuppet/whatever tests they want on me. IP:39.41.134.92 = User:Alien from Afghanistan. One delusional user who calls me things I'm not, both right now, and before (according to him I'm Tajik, Afghan, and living in Canada, I really don't know where he gets this BS from), and who sees anti-Afghanistan editors (especially socks of this so called User:Beh-nam?) in everyone. Please don't waste my time with this. - LouisAragon (talk) 18:58, 25 May 2014 (UTC)
 * You calling me delusional? Do you know what that word means and who it applies to? May I remind you your own very statement to Alien from Afghanistan, quote: "It seems to me you have severe inferiority complexion like many diasporean Afghans, wich is quite understandable given the shitty history and reputation it has, and the shithole it still is nowadays. Pure barbarianism, tribalism, perpetual refugees, being ruled by foreigners for millennia, and child molesting seems to be interchangeable with people from that region." - That tells us that you're anti-Afghanistan and don't play dumb now. It proves that you are racist and you got caught red handed. What's even more disruptive is that you create names such as LouisAragon in order to hide as a white person from the West and give bad reputation to them. That's obviously not your name.--39.41.134.92 (talk) 20:47, 25 May 2014 (UTC)
 * Gentlemen, this is not the place to continue this dispute. All that matters here is whether abusive sockpuppetry is happening. A checkuser has been endorsed. We don't need to continue this. Lower your sabers. —/M endaliv /2¢/Δ's/ 20:51, 25 May 2014 (UTC)

Well, these connections were brought up at my user talk the other day, and I personally didn't see anything in them... but upon reflection, I'm not familiar enough with the subject matter nor the history of behavioral disputes in the topic area to say for sure. Anyway, looks like a CU is going to be run, so that's all I have to say. —/M endaliv /2¢/Δ's/ 19:43, 25 May 2014 (UTC)


 * You know, I've been noticing on a lot of Persian - related articles, this user has been very aggressively and unilaterally removing and adding various details and so-called "facts" as he pleases; some of his older edits seem to be even faintly racist against other Middle Eastern peoples, such as Afghans and Turks; his only main argument for these is that some viewpoints are "POV" but in replacing them with his own edits, he merely adds his own, usually even more unbalanced "POV" to articles. I also happened to noticed that he was engaged in several heated arguments with multiple users over edit-warring in the past, as his talk page easily shows, and has received complaints in the past, despite his deletions of the relevant discussions (for example:), and seems to only believe his own edits are somehow absolute and inviolable, all coloured with a thinly veiled ethnocentric Persian-nationalist leaning.

A quick look also seems to indicate that he has edited on Persian-related articles on Dutch Wikipedia, all but proving that he edits from somewhere in the Netherlands. I admire his fervour in a way, but he must learn to stop inserting his own opinionated "facts" on every article that catches his fancy, and respect others and their perspectives more as well. In all honesty, I find it extremely difficult to consider him a truly objective or mature member of this Wikipedian community; carefully look through the hundreds of user contributions of these accounts and tell me otherwise. 128.122.89.215 (talk) 21:42, 29 May 2014 (UTC)

Clerk, CheckUser, and/or patrolling admin comments

 * - Although everything in the archive is stale, we can at least check four of the current socks and maybe get some sleepers out of it. King of &hearts;   &diams;   &clubs;  &spades; 10:05, 25 May 2014 (UTC)
 * I wasn't able to find any sleeper accounts, and the checkuser evidence is, however I'd suggest going ahead and blocking all of the accounts as the editing conduct is unacceptably poor and the behavioural evidence linking them is clear enough. PhilKnight (talk) 20:27, 7 June 2014 (UTC)
 * All blocked, closing. King of &hearts;   &diams;   &clubs;  &spades; 04:51, 8 June 2014 (UTC)

31 August 2014

 * Suspected sockpuppets




 * User compare report Auto-generated every hour.
 * Editor interaction utility

Same name style ; editing same area (Taliban/Deobandi/Sunnis); uploading copyrighted images under false licenses. He only comes to Wikipedia to distort information,, under socks and edit-war. He stopped using LouisAragon because that one is hanging by a thin rope. With the lastest sock he's trying to change his English from that of LouisAragon. 39.41.14.10 (talk) 12:56, 31 August 2014 (UTC)
 * Beh-nam under (LouisAragon) "One delusional user who calls me things I'm not, both right now, and before (according to him I'm Tajik"
 * StanTheMan87 "You're deluded if you think the image uploaded by the New Yorker"
 * Beh-nam removing Khalilzad's image from Pashtun people article and saying "because Pashtuns dont associate with him", his sock and Khalilzad image and now his latest sock and Khalilzad
 * See this, (an article that get's edited about once a year)

Comments by other users
''Accused parties may also comment/discuss in this section below. See Defending yourself against claims.''

Clerk, CheckUser, and/or patrolling admin comments
. I would have liked to see a few more diffs comparing the two new socks with the master or a confirmed sock, but there's just enough to endorse the CU. Probably immaterial, but Gazkthul's name was changed by a 'crat at the end of 2012 from User:Pmolloy291.--Bbb23 (talk) 19:41, 14 September 2014 (UTC)
 * Oh, yeah, I blocked the IP for three months. He's been blocked before and it was a no-brainer.--Bbb23 (talk) 19:43, 14 September 2014 (UTC)


 * The two listed accounts are --  DQ   (ʞlɐʇ)  15:20, 18 September 2014 (UTC)
 * Closing with no action taken. Mike V  •  Talk  17:13, 18 September 2014 (UTC)

03 January 2015

 * Suspected sockpuppets




 * User compare report Auto-generated every hour.
 * Editor interaction utility

Issac Watson was just created for praising one of his socks(94.210.203.230) changes-, This was a prefect edit, just like 50.65.101.8, This is a perfect edit. Bladesmulti (talk) 07:59, 3 January 2015 (UTC)

Yes I had thought that 84.241.200.207 is him, but the IP told he was unaware of recovering banned editors contributions. I just thought of leaving it out, will see if the IP recovers any of his contributions again.

Beh-nam seems to have stated that he comes from Canada.

Even in previous reports, we have seen that CU results were inconclusive and socks were blocked due to their behavioral match. There is possibility that the user has a good collection of various IP addresses. Bladesmulti (talk) 08:46, 3 January 2015 (UTC)


 * Bbb23, 84.241 is indeed him, now there's no 2nd opinion. He just recovered the edits of 94.210 on Iranians in Pakistan with 84.241.192.196 and also on Tehran. Also 84.241.210.151 and 84.241.194.174. IP is dynamic. Bladesmulti (talk) 14:42, 3 January 2015 (UTC)


 * Another?(89.146.46.242} it is also from Netherlands and it is an obvious duck IP, otherwise who else will make a false claim that this citation doesn't mention Iranians. Bladesmulti (talk) 16:20, 3 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Thanks for writing Callanecc, I read the given link, yes they are all made by a Beh-nam/94.210. Seems like these changes were removed by other person- for exactly same reasons. Beh-nam/94.210 is specifically vandalizing the articles of Afghanistan, Iran, Turkey. Right after knowing that it becomes easier to acknowledge that it is indeed him. Bladesmulti (talk) 02:09, 4 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Bbb23, I think that it shouldn't be removed as you haven't removed the below comments of this sock, but it would be better if we hat each of them and tag the templates with   . Bladesmulti (talk) 16:00, 4 January 2015 (UTC)

Comments by other users
''Accused parties may also comment/discuss in this section below. See Defending yourself against claims.'' My opinion as a bypasser. I was there back in the day then when Beh-nam was being blocked every few days on his socks. Beh-nam is a Canadian based user. 84 and 94 are Netherlands based users. Besides, so far the only edits on 84 are on Iranian related articles, and if you take another look, his reversion on the Iranians in Pakistan article was completely rightful as they are falsification of the sources (they dont mention a thing about the added statement given in the article) Beh-nam was a self admitted Afghan from Canada who hated South Asians and solely commented on South Asian related articles. I dont see how, knowing this, he can be in any way connected to these IPs. Take a look at the content of the edits they made and Beh-nams. 89.146.46.242 (talk) 16:05, 3 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Then why you are obsessed with Turks like Beh-nam? Bladesmulti (talk) 16:54, 3 January 2015 (UTC)

Clerk, CheckUser, and/or patrolling admin comments
. The CU request is not possible as any data is stale. In addition, I'm puzzled by the interplay here. As you know, I blocked User:94.210.203.230 for six months, a known IP address used by the master (see archives). FWIW, 94 geolocates to the Netherlands. You didn't list who reinistated three of 94's edits and who also geolocates to the Netherlands. The IP you did list (50) made only one edit at the Achaemenid Empire article, and it was not to reinstate 94's edit. It was obovious vandalism. Isaac Watson appears to endorse 50's edit, but at the same time reinstates 94's edit. 50 geolocates to Canada, but I'm not sure if that's where the person is located based on certain characteristics also described at geolocate. The named account has made only the two edits. I'm inclined to block based on duck, simply because they reinstated 94's edits on two pages and the timing coming right on the heels of my blocking 94. I'd like to hear your thoughts, though, based on my comments. At this point at least the disruption is minimal (compared to 94, for example).--Bbb23 (talk) 08:38, 3 January 2015 (UTC)
 * I agree that the IPs are socks. However, they are using wireless services that make it easy for them to hop around. To block just those three IPs, a range block (84.241.192.0/19) would affect 8,192 users. I'd like some input on the best way to handle this from, who is more experienced in these matters. Thanks for the update.--Bbb23 (talk) 15:31, 3 January 2015 (UTC)
 * I believe that is using a Dutch webhost. They are in a different range from the 84 series, obviously. For the moment, I'm not blocking them until Callanecc has a chance to respond. However, if they disrupt articles, please let me know.--Bbb23 (talk) 16:48, 3 January 2015 (UTC)
 * looks like a webhost to me as well so I've blocked it. Regarding the /19 have a look at the contrib list here and check how many are Beh-nam and hence collateral (doesn't look to bad to me but will need the anonblock or rangeblock templates (in addition to a link here) as it is being used by others. Callanecc (talk • contribs • logs) 00:43, 4 January 2015 (UTC)
 * I don't see a problem with the /19 list (took a long time to respond, though). All the articles I believe are related to Beh-nam's interests and why would someone using a Dutch web host edit those articles? As for the templates, I need to know how we document and what we document as I have little experience in this. Thanks.


 * Please see the case below and my comment. Should I let it go to archives or should I delete it? On the one hand, I don't like the archive being cluttered by these rambling arguments by Beh-nam, but, on the other hand, it serves to reinforce the findings more than any analysis we could write ourselves.--Bbb23 (talk) 15:43, 4 January 2015 (UTC)

05 January 2015

 * Suspected sockpuppets


 * User compare report Auto-generated every hour.
 * Editor interaction utility

Same old MO as some of these IPs; first edit is to report Bladesmulti for edit warring on AN3, user claims to be "new" but blatantly isn't. AIV request filed as well as per "obvious sock is obvious", but also adding it here in case we have any sleepers lying around. Also appeared a couple of hours after the latest IP was blocked. Luke no 94 (tell Luke off here) 20:53, 5 January 2015 (UTC)

Comments by other users
''Accused parties may also comment/discuss in this section below. See Defending yourself against claims.''

Clerk, CheckUser, and/or patrolling admin comments

 * . -- Jezebel's Ponyo bons mots 23:24, 6 January 2015 (UTC)

13 July 2015

 * Suspected sockpuppets




 * User compare report Auto-generated every hour.
 * Editor interaction utility

Same exact editing patterns and topics of interest as all the previous socks: he glorifies Tajiks and attempts to diminish the ethnic identity of Afghans. At Talk:Kandahar, Scytsari and 99.240.250.20 clearly indicate that they are the same person by continuing each other's sentences:,.

On the Tajiks article, Scytsari was involved in an edit war in which he attempted to reinstate nonsensical pictures which depict medieval Persians as Tajiks:, , , ,. This is similar to Beh-nam's previous socks, e.g. Nasirakram1440:,. Note that the edit summaries and typing styles are virtually identical. One of Nasirakram's aforementioned edit summaries are very similar to one of Scytsari's edit summaries, as both of them label a policy-based removal as 'vandalism' and state that the removing user has a 'personal agenda'. Also note that these medieval Persians were added by Beh-nam in the first place:.

On one article, 99.240.250.20 removes the words 'Afghan' and 'Dari' in an attempt to denigrate ethnic Afghan identity and replaces them with 'Persian'. On Iranian peoples, he infers that 'Iranian' and 'Tajik' are synonyms:,. On his Scytsari account he also makes a similar claim on Talk:Tajiks twice as well:,. This is a favorite argument of Beh-nam and his socks. It would appear that he added this to the Tajiks article back in 2004 when he lived in Germany (as he claims here). This would also explain why the IP which added it is based in Germany, while his other IPs are based in Canada.

On the page Herat, 99.240.250.20 twice removes a large swathe of cited information:,. This is a topic that sockmaster account Beh-nam has edited at least 8 times in his last several hundred edits:, , , , , , ,.

Some notes - 99.240.250.20 has also been 'suspected' by another user of being a sockpuppet of Beh-nam: see User talk:99.240.250.20. I recently learned of this after opening up an ANI against Scytsari due to his tendentious editing on Tajiks.

I request a checkuser to be run on these accounts. Elspamo4 (talk) 07:26, 13 July 2015 (UTC)

Comments by other users
''Accused parties may also comment/discuss in this section below. See Defending yourself against claims.''

See also the current ANI filing against the disruptive account. In case it isn't automatic in re-opened cases, the filer and I would like CheckUser to be performed to find any other socks or sleepers. Softlavender (talk) 08:48, 13 July 2015 (UTC)


 * Addendum: In case it wasn't clear from Elspamo's report: Scytsari edits as 99.240.250.20 when logged out on Talk:Kandahar (the middle of a long two-person dialogue between Scytsari and Kandahar, and 99.240.250.20 has made the same sort of edits that Scytsari and Beh-nam and all of his socks have made.


 * Also,, I do not personally believe you should be acting as clerk here, and insisting that only behavioral evidence be used to judge this case, while at the same time hatting a relevant discussion on Talk:Tajiks which mentions Scytsari (which is evidence for the current ANI about this user), and also involving yourself in that Talk page discussion . Perhaps I'm wrong, but this seems like an involvement which a clerk should not have simultaneously. My understanding is that the ANI issues should be settled by outside parties, not currently involved SPI clerks. I would appreciate it, for the sake of the still-open ANI, if you would unhat the posts you hatted on that page, and probably leave the discussion. Thank you. Softlavender (talk) 01:34, 14 July 2015 (UTC)
 * But is correct. Behavioral evidence can only be used here and Vanjagenije is basically performing housekeeping tasks, not dictating the outcome. His post on the article's talk page was very useful for propelling discussion forward. --Neil N  talk to me 01:45, 14 July 2015 (UTC)
 * His hatting, however, obscures information relevant to the ANI. I would appreciate it if someone (not me) would unhat those posts, as they pertain to the ANI problem and mention the editor who is the subject of the ANI. Softlavender (talk) 01:52, 14 July 2015 (UTC)

Clerk, CheckUser, and/or patrolling admin comments

 * - The master and all previous socks are, so there is nothing to compare Scytsari to. Connecting user accounts with IPs is not allowed either. CheckUser is not for fishing. This case should be judged behaviorally.  Vanjagenije   (talk)  00:22, 14 July 2015 (UTC)
 * Is it possible to use CheckUser here? You made a check in January . Is there some data left?  Vanjagenije  (talk)  01:01, 25 July 2015 (UTC)
 * Sorry, due to apparent use of proxies any residual info remaining in the log isn't helpful.-- Jezebel's Ponyo bons mots 17:48, 27 July 2015 (UTC)


 * There are certainly editing similarities, but do they go further than what might be expected for another editor with a similar point of view to push? Unfortunately, the enormous number of known sockpuppets makes it impracticable to compare Scytsari with all of them in detail, but I have looked for connections to a sample of known socks. Not only did I fail to find any conclusive evidence of sockpuppetry, but I even found some evidence against sockpuppetry. Scytsari does not seem to know how to file a case at the edit-warring noticeboard:, whereas both Beh-nam and at least one Beh-nam sockpuppet long ago knew how to do it:  . Also, Scytsari does not seem to know how capitalisation is used in English, whereas Beh-nam had no such difficulty. In the absence of really convincing evidence of sockpuppetry, such evidence as that tips the balance, and I have to conclude that Scytsari is very unlikely to be a sockpuppet of Beh-nam, so I am closing the case. If Ponyo responds to the above ping and comes back with more evidence, then the case can be reopened, but it looks so unlikely to me that evidence will be forthcoming that I see no point in leaving it open on the off chance. (I will also take the opportunity to state that the above criticism of Vanjagenije is totally without merit. Vanjagenije's actions have been perfectly correct.) The editor who uses the pseudonym "JamesBWatson" (talk) 13:22, 25 July 2015 (UTC)